The release of 3CX Phone System 12 also marked the release of new clients for Android and iPhone. These clients take advantage of a new feature in 3CX Phone System 12, called Push Technology. Using 3CX Phone System’s 12 Push Technology will help you avoid missing phone calls.

3CX Phone System 12 Push Technology

Push technology is a way of sending information to the user instead of waiting for the user to actually request that information. 3CXPhone for Android and iPhone uses Push Technology to wake up the smartphone when a call is received. This does not require the user to keep the phone active to be able to receive calls, the device can be put to sleep mode and save battery life.

Configuring Google Push for 3CX Phone System 12

Before you start using Google Push you first need to configure it with 3CX Phone System 12. To leverage Push Technology for Android you need to follow the next steps before you deploy 3CXPhone as the Google API key is needed to allow 3CX Phone System 12 to send push requests to the phone.

Login to your Gmail Account.

Follow this link to go to the Google API Console Page: https://code.google.com/apis/console/.
(Note: you might receive a warning about redirecting you to the new Cloud Console. If that is the case select the “Go Back” option in the warning label).

Click on “Create Project” to start creating your new Google project. The browser URL will then change to something like: https://code.google.com/apis/console/#project:622075684722:Services

Take a note of the value after #project in the URL link outlined above (622075684722). This is your project number, and it will be used later on as the GCM sender ID by 3CX Phone System 12.

The new project will be created with the default name “API Project” (it can change from the left side menu, we changed it to “Google Push”). You will notice that there is a list of services available for this project.

Scroll down the Services list until you find the service named “Google Cloud messaging for Android“. Once you have located the service press the “OFF” button next to the service name to enable it.

After you enable the service, scroll to the top of the Services page and click on the “API Access” option on the left menu.

At this stage you should now note down the value of the “API Key” field. Close your browser and open the 3CX Management Console.

Navigate to “Settings” and click on “3CXPhone”

In the “URL field” insert the following: https://android.googleapis.com/gcm/send.

In the “API Key” and “Project Number” fields insert the values that you noted down from step 7 and 3.

After filling in the values to enable Push you need to select which extensions will receive push notifications. From the left column in the “Select 3CX Users section” select users and press “Add“. The extension will be moved to the right column and will have Push notifications enabled (outlined in red above). Press “Apply” when done.

Ok, so is everyone being told that 3CX for iPhone doesn’t (reliably) work with Push notifications? Does anyone have an eta on when an update to the iPhone app will be released as it is really hampering my 3CX deployment.